The invention relates generally to an electronic document handling system and more particularly to an improved image processing system.
It will be appreciated that millions of checks, both commercial and retail, are presented to financial institutions for processing every day. Each of these checks must be processed by one or more institutions and by the account holder's bank. Because of the volume of checks handled every day, the processing of checks is typically automated where high speed equipment automatically read, sort and process the checks based on the MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) code printed on the bottom of the checks.
Posting is the process by which an institution settles a transaction on an account, records the transaction and makes available a copy of the transaction instrument to the account holder. For one typical type of account the transaction instrument is made available to the account holder via a monthly statement.
A process known as Electronic Check Presentment (“ECP”) was developed in the 1980's and 1990's and implemented by some financial institutions to send and receive MICR code of a check for posting to a customer's account in advance of the actual physical check. This process accelerates the posting process and availability of funds, with the drawback of reconciling differences between MICR code transmissions and subsequent physical check arrival, sometimes resulting in financial adjustments to customer accounts. Banks work to avoid these adjustments, since unexpected changes in account balances are disruptive and dissatisfying to customers.
The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21), intended to modernize the nation's check collection and forwarding process and minimize its disruption by eliminating reliance on paper-processing and physical transport. Check 21 allows financial institutions to generate substitute checks, or image replacement documents (IRD's), with the same legal status as an original check. Images can be sent between financial institutions and, by the nature of reconversion from image back to substitute checks, can be negotiated the same as the original paper document.
Any time an electronic image of a check is created the image may not be of suitable quality for posting. Factors contributing to poor quality include the source document, ink color, defects in the image capture process, and so on. Moreover the Financial Services Technology Consortium is developing industry standards for image quality and usability that must be met by the transferred images. If an image of poor quality, or an item missing an image altogether, is posted to an account, the posting institution may be liable for a wrongful payment and/or the customer may not be able to prove payment. Under practices set forth in partner bank agreements and established industry rule sets for check image exchange, an acceptable quality image, faithful to the original check, is required for presentment for payment to be considered to have occurred. Under practices set forth in partner bank agreements and established industry rule sets for check image exchange, an acceptable quality image, faithful to the original check is required for presentment for payment to be considered to have occurred. Moreover, where a customer discovers a posting problem the bank must engage in customer reversal and reclamation processes for funds that were erroneously settled. Moreover, banking customers expect that any image posted to their account faithfully represents the check as written. Low quality postings and reversals are visible to the institution's customers and may be viewed by the customer as mistakes by the institution resulting in customer dissatisfaction. This problem is exacerbated where the incorrect posting of the check occurs near the end of a transaction reporting cycle and the reversal is not reported until the following statement, perhaps one month later.
Thus, an improved image posting process that monitors image quality and that accelerates image defect returns to the presenting institution and prevents defective check image transactions from being posted is desired.